Empowering Advocacy

Advocacy can empower a wide variety of stakeholders and supporters to stand up and speak out for animal welfare, sure of their issue and their ability to contribute to change. Empowerment makes an advocacy campaign more powerful and, ultimately, brings sustainable change.

Make your advocacy work participatory: involving partners, allies and supporters. This will build interest and commitment, ensuring that these individuals and organization have a stake in its continued success.

Empowering advocacy should not only work to address advocacy issues, but also seek to make the structures and systems of decision-making more inclusive; ensuring genuine consultation and involvement with animal welfare interest groups.

Advocacy can strengthen animal welfare organizations and supporters through promoting social organization, forming new leaders, and building capacity. Participatory advocacy can also strengthen networks on the national, regional and international level, building a strong collective voice for the movement.

This requires working with animal welfare networks, organizations and supporters to encourage them to think differently about their power relationships; giving them the courage to confront and change political and societal issues affecting animal welfare.